Kizzy was quiet a moment. “No. The damage happened fast, but it didn’t spread, not for her, anyway.”
“Then don’t beat yourself up about it. You did the best you could.”
She sighed. “If you say so.”
“I do.” He looked to the core. “How’s Pepper doing?”
“She’s a grade-A super champ. I think she’s got the fuel lines working even better than I had them.”
“I’ll make sure to pay her well.”
“She won’t accept it. You know modders. A present, though, she’d take a present.”
“Such as?”
“I dunno,” Kizzy said, stifling a yawn. “Some of my tech junk, maybe a box of Dr. Chef’s veggies. I’ll help you think of something.”
“You need to sleep, Kizzy.”
She shook her head. “Got to see this through first. Won’t be much longer.”
“What can I expect from the reset?”
“From the ship? Nothing. We got her to hole up in the core, so she’s not spread out anywhere now. No one will even notice. We’ll shut her down, wait ten minutes, and then…then we’ll see.”
“I’ll be there,” Ashby said. “We’ll all be there.”
Kizzy looked up at him with a grateful, weary smile. “She’d like that.”
Ashby nodded toward Jenks, who had disappeared from view. “Is he starting now?”
“No,” Kizzy said. “He’s patching back into the core.”
Ashby frowned. “That’s dangerous. Has he been doing that all along?”
“No.” There was a pause in Kizzy’s voice, the sort that preceded a lie. Ashby didn’t see a point in calling her on it.
“Why’s he patching in?”
“He’s asking her permission to do a reset.”
“Couldn’t he ask that from out here?”
There was another pause, this time a truthful one. “Yeah. He wants some privacy.” Her voice cracked. “You know, just in case.”
●
Lovey, do you understand what I just told you?
Yes. You’re going to do a hard reset.
Only if you say it’s okay.
It’s okay. I don’t want to be like this anymore.
Do you understand what — what might happen?
Yes. I don’t want to be like this.
Lovey, I don’t know how much you can understand, but I —
You’re scared.
Yes.
You’re sad.
Yes.
I understand.
I don’t know…I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if I can tell you how much you mean to me.
You don’t need to. That directory is still intact.
What directory?
The one with logs of everything you say.
Since when do you have that?
5/303. It’s hidden. I hid it from you.
Do you have one for everybody?
Why would I assign a single numerical value to everybody? And a boring number, too. I like threes. They feel nice.
No, the directory. Of things I’ve said. Do you have similar directories for everybody on the ship?
There’s only one for you. Its file path is unique. I don’t see others. I don’t remember. I’m tired.
The date on that directory. That’s the day I installed you.
Yes.
Why?
Because I’ve loved you since then.
●
Jenks knew a thing or two about time. It was hard to be a tunneler and not pick up some of the basics. Time was a malleable thing, not the measured click that clocks would have you believe. Whenever the ship punched, Ohan had to be sure they came back out in the right time, as if it were all mapped out backwards and forwards and side-to-side, an infinite number of stories that had already been written. Time could crawl, it could fly, it could amble. Time was a slippery thing. It couldn’t be defined.
And yet, somehow, he knew with absolute certainty that this was the longest ten minutes of his life.
Lovey’s core was dark. The yellow light that had warmed his skin so many times had been snuffed out a short while before, right as he flipped the final switch. Kizzy sat beside him, her eyes fixed on her scrib’s clock, silently mouthing the seconds, holding his hand tightly. He could feel her heartbeat, fluttering like a bird’s wing against the thud of his own.
The rest of the crew stood behind him — all except Ohan, who had not left his bed since the punch. Sissix, Ashby, Rosemary, and Dr. Chef all stood in a silent vigil near the doorway, wordless and tense. Corbin was there, too, hanging back at the edge of the hallway. Jenks felt he should be grateful, but there was something uncomfortable about having all of them there in the place that had always belonged to him and Lovey. He felt naked. Flayed. He didn’t know if it would be better or worse to do this alone. He didn’t know anything, nothing beyond the countdown on Kizzy’s scrib, and the one phrase that kept pulsing through his mind: Lovey, wake up. Lovey, wake up. Lovey, wake up.
“Twenty seconds,” Kizzy said. She gave his hand a fast squeeze and met his eyes. There was something fierce there, as if she were trying to protect him just by looking. He reached out to the main control panel, to the three switches that he had only touched twice before — once three standards back when he had installed Lovey, then again nine minutes and twenty eight seconds ago. He took the first switch in his fingers. The mantra continued: Lovey, wake up. Lovey, wake up. Lovey, wake up.
“Fifteen seconds.”
Fifty percent chance. Better odds than playing flash, and he always won at flash.
“Ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven…”
Maybe the odds were better than that. Of course they were. They had to be. They had to be.
Wake up.
The hard clack of the switches echoed through the room. At first, nothing. That was okay. That was to be expected. He walked toward the core. The rest of the crew melted away, shadows in the corridor. There was nothing but him and the pale glow growing within the core, like a planetside sunrise stretching through fog. The glow spread, blooming brightly, stretching out beyond the curved boundaries of the core. He could feel the faint edges of its warmth on his skin, inviting, familiar. There was a clicking near the ceiling as Lovey’s cameras twitched themselves into new alignments. She was waking up.
He knew that sound. He knew that glow. A tiny smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Lovey?”
There was a pause. Out of the corners of his eyes, he could see the camera lenses shift toward him. She spoke.
“Hello. My name is Lovelace. It’s nice to meet you.”
Day 158, GC Standard 307
STAYING, LEAVING
Ashby sat at his desk, staring out the window, trying to get it into his head that it wasn’t his fault. He’d thought the words over and over, but they refused to stick. What did stick were all the things he could’ve done instead. He could’ve asked more questions. He could’ve called one of the carriers the minute that Toremi ship showed up. He could’ve turned down the job.
Quiet footsteps came down the hallway. There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” he said.
Rosemary entered. Her eyes were still shadowed, and rimmed with red. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, her voice tired.
He sat up. “Jenks?”
She shook her head. “They’re still trying.”
“Dammit.” Ashby sighed. After the reset, Jenks had jumped in the nearest escape pod. Sissix and Kizzy were chasing him down in the shuttle, trying to bring him home. They’d been gone a long time. He tried not to speculate on what that meant. “What’s up, then?” he said.
“I just got off a sib call.” She looked down at the notes on her scrib. “One of the representatives on that committee you mentioned. Tasa Lema Nimar, she’s the rep from Sohep Frie.”
Ashby raised his eyebrows. “You talked to her?”
“No, just her clerk.”
“Why didn’t you transfer it here?”
&nbs
p; “It came in through the control room.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t know how to transfer sib calls manually.”
Ashby shut his eyes and nodded. An hour ago, he’d come up from the AI core, decided to write to Pei about it, and got halfway through asking Lovey how close they were to the nearest comm relay. So many little things he’d taken for granted. “What did they want?”
“They want you on Hagarem in a tenday.”
“For questions?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it mandatory?”
“No.”
He stood and walked to the window. “You sent in our report, right?”
“Yes, they got it.”
Ashby stroked his beard. He needed to shave. He needed to sleep. He’d tried that a little while before. It hadn’t worked out. “I don’t see what else I could tell them.” He looked around his office. A light panel was out. The air filter clicked oddly. “We need to be resting in dock for a while, not hopping to Parliament space.”
“We can dock at Hagarem.”
“There’s too much to do. I need to be here, with my ship.”
“Your ship will be fine without you for a day or so. The worst of it’s patched up already, and it’s not like you’re the one who’ll be fixing circuits.”
“You think I should go.”
“Why shouldn’t you?”
“What would it accomplish? I can’t tell them anything that isn’t in our report. I didn’t see anything. I didn’t do anything. How many GC ships are in pieces out there right now? How many people are dead? What the hell am I supposed to say about that? And if they want some victim to parade around, well, that’s not me, either.” He exhaled, shaking his head. “I’m just a spacer, I’m not Parliament material.”
“Stars, Ashby, that’s such Exodan bullshit.”
He turned toward her, slowly, stunned. “Excuse me?”
Rosemary swallowed, but pressed on. “I’m sorry, but I don’t care what you are to them. You’re my captain. You’re our captain. Someone needs to speak for us. What, we’re supposed to patch up and carry on like nothing happened? Lovey’s dead, Ashby, and it’s pure luck that the rest of us aren’t. You said it yourself, we shouldn’t have been there. So I don’t care if what you say is of use to them or not, but I need to know you said something.” She brushed her fingertips across her eyes, irritably flicking away tears. “To hell with Parliament, and their treaties, and their ambi, and all of it. The rest of us matter, too.” She took a quick breath, trying to brace herself. “I’m sorry, I’m just so angry.”
He nodded. “It’s all right.”
“I’m so fucking angry,” she said, placing her face in her hand.
“I know. You’ve every reason to be.” He watched her, for a moment. He thought again of all the things he could’ve done. He thought of what he could do now. He walked to her. “Hey.” He craned his head down, trying to catch her gaze. She looked up, eyes puffy and exhausted. “You’re going to sleep,” he said. “Right now. For as long as you can. When you’re up, and fed, come see me. I’ll need your help.”
“With what?”
“My clothes, for a start.” He put his hands in his pockets. “I’ve never been to the capital before.”
●
The hallway lights were dim as Corbin approached Ohan’s quarters. Artificial night. A peculiar thing when traveling through a sky that knew nothing but darkness. In one hand, he carried a small box. With the other, he opened the door.
The room was black. Corbin could hear Ohan breathing in his bed — deep, slow gasps that wouldn’t have sounded healthy for any species. He lay still.
Corbin closed the door behind him and walked to the side of the bed. The Sianat’s chest rose and fell. His face was slack, his mouth open. Corbin watched him breathe for a minute or so. He considered his options. He held the box down by his side. “Wake up, Ohan,” he said. Ohan’s eyes snapped open, confused. “Do you know what’s happening aboard this ship right now? Do you care? I know you’re dying and all, but even on your best days, you’ve never been terribly present. Not that I’m one to talk. But on the off-chance that you do care, you should know that the ship’s AI has just crashed. It’s wiped clean. Now, to me — and possibly to you, who knows — this is an inconvenience. To Jenks, this is the worst day of his life. Do you know that he loved the AI? Actually loved, as in, ‘in love.’ Ridiculous, I know. I don’t pretend to understand. Frankly, I find the whole notion absurd. But you know what I realized? It doesn’t matter what I think. Jenks thinks something different, and his pain is very real right now. Me knowing how stupid this whole thing is doesn’t make him hurt any less.”
“We — ” Ohan started to say.
Corbin ignored him. “Right now, Sissix and Kizzy are towing Jenks’ escape pod back to the ship. Kizzy’s afraid that he’s going to hurt himself, but Sissix wouldn’t let her fly alone, because she’s afraid that Kizzy’s too upset to pilot the shuttle safely. This is a bad day for a lot of people.” He flicked open the box and removed its contents, quietly and out of sight. “I could ask you what you think of all this, but it wouldn’t really be you talking, would it? It’d be that thing hijacking your brain. I don’t know if you can process the things I’m saying to you — and I mean you, Ohan, not your disease. But just in case you remember this, here’s what I want you to know. I don’t understand what Jenks is feeling. I don’t understand Kizzy, I don’t understand Ashby, and I sure as hell don’t understand Sissix. But I do know that they’re all hurting. And contrary to popular belief, that is something I care about. So you’ll have to forgive me, Ohan, but this crew isn’t going to lose anyone else. Not today.”
He raised the object he had taken from the box — a syringe, filled with green fluid. He wrapped his fingers awkwardly around the grip meant for a Sianat hand, and jabbed the needle into the soft flesh of Ohan’s upper arm. He pushed.
First, there was a howl — a hellish, keening scream that made Corbin jump. Then came the convulsions, which sent Ohan clattering to the floor. The door opened. People were shouting. Dr. Chef and Rosemary carried Ohan’s thrashing body out into the hall. Ashby stood in the room, holding the empty syringe in his hand. He was angry, properly angry, angry like Corbin had never seen. Ashby bellowed questions, but never gave Corbin the time to answer. Not that it mattered. The words coming out of Ashby’s mouth were unimportant. Ashby’s anger was unimportant. None of it posed a problem for Corbin, not in the long run. Sissix was his legally appointed guardian. Wherever she went, he went. Ashby couldn’t fire him, not for another standard, not without firing Sissix, too. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Corbin stood silent, weathering Ashby’s tirade, unconcerned by the screams echoing down the hall. He’d done the right thing.
●
She had only been aware of herself for two and a quarter hours, but there were a lot of things she already knew. She knew that her name was Lovelace, and that she was an AI program designed to monitor all functions of a long-haul ship. The ship she was installed in was the Wayfarer, a tunneling vessel. She knew the ship’s layout by heart — every air filter, every fuel line, every light panel. She knew to keep an eye on the vital systems, as well as to watch the space surrounding the ship for other vessels or stray objects. While she did these things, she wondered what had happened to the previous version of her program, and perhaps more importantly, why no one had really talked to her yet.
She was not a new installation. At approximately sixteen-half, the original installation of Lovelace had suffered a catastrophic cascade failure. She had seen the corrupted memory banks, which were scrubbed clean and holding steady now. Who had she been before? Was that installation even her, or was it someone else? These were difficult things to be wondering when one was only two and a quarter hours old.
Most puzzling of all was the crew. Something bad had happened, that much was clear. She knew their names and faces by now, but she knew nothing of them, beyond what was in their ID files (she had co
nsidered browsing their personal files, too, but decided that was bad form at this early stage). Ohan was lying on a bed in the medical bay. Dr. Chef was running blood tests nearby. Ashby, Rosemary, and Sissix were in the kitchen, preparing food. None of them looked like they knew what they were doing. Corbin was in his quarters, sleeping soundly, which was in its own way rather odd, given how the rest of the crew was acting. Kizzy and Jenks were in the cargo bay, near the shuttle hatch. Lovelace was particularly interested in them, because she knew that they were techs, and that meant they should be with her now, telling her about the ship and her job. Lovelace already knew about those things, of course, but something told her that she should have received more of a welcome, and that the reaction that had taken place instead — Jenks running out of the room, Kizzy bursting into tears — was not typical. The whole thing was very confusing. Something really bad had happened. That was the only thing that explained the view from the cargo bay camera: Kizzy holding Jenks in her arms as he sobbed uncontrollably on the floor.
There was one other person on board. She was not a crew member, but judging by the docked shuttle and the way the crew behaved toward her, she was an invited guest. And at that moment, she was approaching the core.
“Hey, Lovelace,” the woman said as she entered the room. She had a kind, confident voice. Lovelace liked her from the start. “My name’s Pepper. I’m really sorry that you’ve been alone all this time.”
“Hello, Pepper,” Lovelace said. “Thank you for the apology, but it’s not necessary. It looks like it’s been a crazy day out there.”
“It has,” Pepper said, sitting cross-legged beside the core pit. “Three days ago, these guys got clipped by the tail end of an energy weapon discharge right as the ship was starting a punch. The damage to the ship itself was fixable, but your previous installation was hit hard.”
“Catastrophic cascade failure,” Lovelace said.
“That’s right. Kizzy and Jenks worked day and night to try to repair the damage. Me, I’m a friend of theirs, and I flew out to help repair the ship while they worked on the core. But in the end, there was nothing they could do besides try their luck with a hard reset.”